"Apple today announced it has sold over five million of its new iPhone 5, just three days after its launch on September 21, and more than 100 million iOS devices have been updated with iOS 6, the world's most advanced mobile operating system." The last claim is debatable, but the figures are not - very impressive. Of course, do note that the iPhone 5 was available in more countries than the 4S in its first weekend, and if you take that into account, the iPhone 5 didn't do any better than the 4S at all (which doesn't negate the incredible sales - it just highlights the smartphone market's growth might be slowing). It's also lower than what analysts expected, but they're just monkeys throwing darts at figures anyway.

Except for in the case of VoLTE, though I’m not sure if Apple is using that and/or being interoperable with the other HDVoice phones on the market ‐ ie, Android

Which has to be the stupidest idea to come out of the mobile world this year. Does no one give a damn about battery life anymore? No matter which smartphone one uses these days, it seems the battery won't even last a day if you actually use the device. LTE drains a lot of power and, since many manufacturers (Apple included) seem to go for thin form over actual function, sending voice over that power hog of a network is the very last thing I want done given that the phones don't have the large battery needed to actually sustain a decent operating time when using LTE.

If you have a tethering plan (or you're jailbroken), it's a lot faster.

I suppose it depends on where you're located and what your carrier options are. Here in the US it's getting quite hard to find any carrier that'll give you unlimited data, and their caps are quite low (usually 3 to 5 gb). It strikes me that, in that situation, the last thing I'd want is a super-fast mobile internet as that would make it far easier to go over a cap. Of course, that's probably exactly what most carriers have planned. The only one I know of to actually offer what they claim is an unlimited LTE plan is Sprint, and their coverage is terrible where I am so they're not an option. I have AT&T's so-called unlimited right now, though even that is limited in that they'll speed-throttle you. If I ever get an LTE phone, no doubt I'll have to give that up if I actually want to use LTE and get hard-capped all over again. I don't really see the point of LTE until the carrier situation gets better which, in this country, it never will given how the carriers and FCC have everything locked out to the point that only the major carriers can even exist. Even the regional carriers have to license their network time from the big boys.